The Walk to Canossa was Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV’s (in)famous journey to Canossa Castle in 1077, during the time of the Investiture controversy.
The emperor’s humiliation was complete: he was forced to wait for three days and nights amidst a blizzard, on his knees … just to be admitted to Pope Gregory, who had excommunicated him earlier, with that effectively allowing German aristocracy to rebel against the emperor.
After the emperor begged for forgiveness, peace was reestablished (for a few years, at least), but it didn’t mean that the power struggle between church and state got solved.
In retrospect, some claimed that the Walk to Canossa was not a humiliating defeat, but a brilliant strategic step: Henry won time to save his throne and gather enough supporters, then, three years later, it was him who forced Pope Gregory to flee.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock might have had her own Canossa moment in Syria.
Former President Bashar al-Assad’s airplane was still thought to have crashed, when talk had already begun around Europe about requesting the app. 1 million Syrian migrants to return home. Hoping that it would help to alleviate some social grievances and stop European voters’ further swing to the right.
Right now, there are 974,136 Syrian nationals (give or take a few thousand undocumented ones) currently living in Germany, of whom 712,000 have been granted refugee status but this also includes asylum-seekers whose applications are still pending or whose applications have been rejected but who have been granted temporary protection.
After the fall of the Assad regime, Germany was among the first countries that suspended processing asylum applications for Syrians.
Some, like Former Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) even suggested financial incentives to encourage Syrian refugees to leave Germany. Bavaria’s state premier Markus Söder also hinted at revisions of previously granted asylums, given that the ‘situation has changed’.
Make no mistake, handling migration in a regulated and controlled way would, without doubt benefit Europe, the same way as sending home those who have no right to stay would. Even the SPD and Die Grüne admitted this much, even if they were less enthusiastic than their conservative counterparts.
Thus, it is of outmost importance that Syria gets on the path of recovery as quickly as possible, so the migrants can be sent home.
The irony lies in the way the events unfolded.
The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), that swept through the country in the matter of days, is a designated terrorist group and is under EU sanctions. Baerbock herself acknowledged that ‘we know where the HTS comes from ideologically, what it has done in the past’.
Yet, given the highly unstable domestic political landscape both in France and Germany, some sort of reset is inevitable even if it means negotiating with (former) terrorists.
To facilitate the country’s quick transition, France’s and Germany’s top diplomats paid a surprise visit to Damascus’ new de facto ruler.
A first in many years, twelve in the case of Berlin, to be exact.
The official reason was, naturally, to ‘promote a peaceful and demanding transition in the service of the Syrians and of regional stability’, that should, according to Baerbock, also ensure an ‘inclusive, peaceful transition of power, as well as reconstruction of the war-ravaged country’.
To give emphasis to those demands, Baerbock declared that the EU would not finance the emergence of Islamist structures and the new regime must deliver results before sanctions could be lifted. Neither did she promise (officially) any financial help or loan.
If anybody hoped for a quick transition and an even quicker return of Syrian migrants, they should lower their expectations, as the new Syrian authorities estimate that at the bare minimum, three years are needed to come up with a draft constitution and an extra one until elections.
That is, if the new leadership truly aims for the moderation European leaders are dreaming about.
Or whether they realize that even if Syria (just like the rest of the Middle East) fails to turn into a European-style democratic oasis in the middle of autocratic regimes and failed states, they need to cooperate with the new government no matter what.
The sad reality is that Europe (Germany) needs Syria more than the other way around, so it is probably the question of time before ‘carrots’ start to replace those ‘sticks’.
On a quick side note, the first such carrot appeared just before the end of 2024, when Developmental Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) announced a €60 million aid package.
Baerbock got a taste of how the ‘inclusive’ transition might look like with the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in power, when Ahmad Hussein al-Sha’ra refused to shake hands with her yet shook the hand of French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot.
News reports were also silent on how the new leadership (classified as a terrorist organization with past links to al-Qaeda) reacted to her long list of demands that included, among others that “ethnic and religious groups involving men as well as women … must be involved in the constitutional process and in a future Syrian government’.
And later, Syrian media reported about the visit with all the female participants blurred out. Taking a closer look on the pictures, it is also obvious that Baerbock’s armchair is slightly farther away from al-Sha’ra’s than Barot’s.
The German Foreign Ministry tried to downplay the importance of the incident, while Baerbock stated that Barrot also didn’t shake hands with al-Sha’ra (but he did), then she also added that she did not expect ‘an ordinary handshake’.
It is yet to be seen whether this modern Walk to Canossa was a humiliating eye-opener for the advocates of the rights of women and minorities that exposed Europe’s vulnerability or a brilliant and necessary strategic step with long-term gains in sight.